This was another one of the books that I read on my Scottish honeymoon, it was recommended to me at a ‘Book Spa’ experience (if you haven’t been to one – go to one, it’s like therapy but with literature and tea…and cake), basically because I said I was a bit of an Agatha Christie fan and this book is indeed a murder mystery but a murder mystery with a bit of twist.

Now obviously your bottom has some important bodily functions that must be taken care of and they can also be nice to touch, and wibble about in front of the mirror but I was getting ready for an evening out when I came across this on Youtube:

I’d gone from being excited for a lovely night out on the taaan to seriously depressed about the state of the world I’m going to have to bring children up in one day. It was a proper bummer (ha).

So I came across this little video on the Independent website and was almost instantly incandescent! With good reason!

Here’s why:

The comments “let men be men” and “men are going to be that way, what can you do?” have sickened me down to my core. Firstly the majority of men that I know don’t see catcalling as an inherent part of their “man-ness”. They don’t see shouting unsolicited comments at random strangers solely based on their appearance as at all associated with the fact that they have a penis. Secondly, “men are going to be that way, what can you do?” this sounds like something some twat who works for Nuts magazine would say about a rape case. If we as a society start to adopt this attitude to unwanted attention it will have an extremely detrimental effect on where we draw the lines of consent, sexism and ultimately gender equality. Men are not just “going to be that way”, no man is born a chauvinistic pillock, they learn these specific behaviours through growing up in a society willing to take harassment as par for the course of being a woman!

I am all for dressing to impress, if I have a big meeting I make sure I’m dressed nicely, I put my makeup on and do my hair – I want to make a good impression. That impression is not “you should do business with me because I look sexy” it’s “you should do business with me because you can take me seriously”. Yes I want to look good, but that has nothing to do with looking sexually attractive. So when this hideous excuse for a man says that when he gets dressed in the morning he wants to look in a certain way that is “appealing” to people, all I have to say is FAIL (unless a fake-tanned-over-sized-baby-in-a-suit looking man is appealing – each to their own I suppose). Even if he was a handsome Adonis of a man I would be pushed to find anything appealing about him because I would be too focused on the fact that he’s a complete wanker. Call me crazy but I like to hold standards for people based on their thoughts, opinions and actions, not on the cut or brand of their suit.

If someone were to clap me down the street I wouldn’t be smiling, or feel complimented, I would be intimidated and frankly a wee bit confused.

I almost feel sorry for these women because they’re confusing two very different things. Should someone you know say, “you look nice today” – that’s a compliment, if someone you don’t know shouts “nice arse” at you while you cross the road – that’s harassment. I am confident enough in myself not to yearn for a stranger to find me physically attractive. If these ladies are so deprived of genuine compliments that they have to quaff and Botox themselves to within an inch of their lives and revel in the objectification of their efforts by random men then they need therapy, not a TV show. The other day I was in Boots, wearing my most favourite of all my Marple-style suits and the lady serving me said, “that is a great suit” – that’s a complement! It is a truly great suit! That’s why I bought it! Not because it shows my legs or bottom or booby bits (which incidentally it doesn’t – Marple would never behave in such a way) because it’s frikin awesome! Now if she had said “your bottom looks good in that skirt, I would so love to touch it” I would have been tempted to say, “I have not invited you to comment on my physicality in any way and would thank you kindly not to ever again” because I know the difference between a COMPLIMENT and an OBJECTIFICATION.

The saddest thing about this whole sorry video is that these people are allowed to voice their damaging and ridiculous opinions on a national scale, on a mainstream stage, in the largest country in the world. It’s so important to make sure that we mark this as what it is – just wrong and that we strive to teach the boys and girls of the generation coming after ours that self esteem is not something that is shouted at you across the street, that self respect is not glowing upon the objectification of a crass and rude person, that what you look like does not make you who you are and that it is not okay to shout hideous things at people you don’t know!

Thats not so much my 10 cents as my 100 dollars worth. I don’t like sitting on the fence – long thin planks of wood are not a comfortable thing to place my un-objectified bottom on thank you very much.

Like this:

I’ve decided to turn my pen (keys) to criticising other people hard work, or as it’s more commonly referred to, reviews!

A few Fridays ago Christopher and I went to see The Great Gatsby.

I had been excited about this film for about a year and had very high expectations of it, only increased by the massive hype surrounding its release – the Cannes red carpets, the huge social media and TV presence, however, having now seen the film I have to say I think it was a little over-hyped.

I felt the performances were great, I always love Carey Mulligan’s acting skills and when has Tobey Maguire ever done a bad job? However, whilst Leonardo DiCaprio gives a convincing portrayal of Gatsby, he brings a childlike innocence and an endearing quality to the character that I didn’t feel was present in the book, indeed I feel it undermines the message of the book. Of course this is a common Hollywood ploy to add a heightened emotional element to a story. I couldn’t help but think this was yet another ‘Hollywood-ised’ manipulation of a text in order to make the film more appealing to a wider audience as opposed to enhancing the text for film.

With period films I’m usually more excited about seeing the costumes than I am the actual film, especially when it comes to a story set in the 1920s, but the styling of this film wasn’t as tantalising as I thought it would be, apart from the hats. I wanted every hat I saw, including the men’s ones but excluding that weird netted pirate thing Daisy has on her head when she goes to Nick’s house for tea. I felt the costumes were created to appeal more to a modern eye than to recall the glamour of the 20s in its glorious reality. It was much the same with the music of the film. I understand that Lurmann’s intention was to transcend the time via musical genre so that one could better understand the feel of the American 20s, by relating them to the American 00s. However, the music didn’t feel cutting edge or unusual or new, as jazz would have felt to society in the 20s. It was emotive and added to the film, but I don’t feel it achieved what it was intended to.The use of modern music in a period setting also gave the air of similarity between The Great Gatsby and Moulin Rouge, to the point where I almost felt I’d seen the former before. I respect Baz Lurmann’s vision as a director and that he has a very distinctive style of movie making, but this felt like it had been made to a formula everyone has seen before, a few times before.

Even taking into consideration the good performances and enjoyable aspects of the film, the overall feel of the movie was a little obvious, un-original in the context of the director’s previous works and very much ‘Hollywood-ised’ to the point that the text felt more of an avenue for a glitzy film, than the inspiration for a good movie.